No 4: Flexibility and protectionism. Swedish trade in sugar during the early modern era

Klas Rönnbäck ()

Abstract: Sugar was of the utmost importance for the development of
a transatlantic trade during the early modern era. This working paper
explores the impact of institutions and institutional changes of the
colonial trade in sugar focusing on one country on the European
semi-periphery, namely Sweden. Through protectionist policies, Swedish
merchants were able to catch a significant share of the Baltic trade in
colonial goods, despite the country having no colonies of its own. This in
turn enabled a diversification of the sources of colonial goods. Trade in
sugar became highly flexible during the period, rapidly changing in
response to a changing international market. Protectionist policies also
enabled the development of a domestic sugar manufacture, which flourished
during the late 18th and early 19th century. When Swedish trade policy was
liberalized around the 1850s, the domestic industry went through hard times
from the international competition. The introduction of sugar beet would
however have even more far-reaching consequences for the international
trade in sugar. Swedish sugar imports collapsed by more than 98 per cent in
less than ten years when domestic production of sugar beet had gotten off
to a start at the end of the 19th century. The preliminary conclusions form
the first output from the work on a thesis concerned with the trade in
colonial goods of actors in the European semi-periphery. One future aim is
to compare the colonial trade in sugar of Sweden and Denmark.

To be published in report from conference “Varudistribution och marknadsintegrering på randen till industrisamhället”, Gothenburg, February 2006

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